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Macapagal Urges Cooperation, Consultation between DND/AFP and Eco Zones

Jun 26, 2026 1,290

Subic Bay, Philippines – Facing members of the Media in central Luzon, seasoned corporate leader and former PNR Chairman Michael Ted Macapagal addressed the intensifying structural friction between AFP officers, Defense officials and civilian executives in several economic zones across the country, cautioning against the outright abolition of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA).

Macapagal was reacting to recent declarations made by Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr., who has asked Congress to halt efforts to extend the BCDA’s corporate life, labeling the bases conversion model a “failure.”

The Defense chief is echoing the sentiment of uniformed officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Secretary Teodoro revealed that the BCDA has yielded only Php 45 billion pesos for military modernization over a 26-year period -a return vastly outweighed by the strategic, irreplaceable value of the military lands sacrificed.

While validating the Defense Department’s deep institutional frustrations, Macapagal argued that completely dissolving the BCDA would be overly disruptive, and it would derail plans for a massive economic growth, particularly in the administration’s push for the Luzon Economic Corridor.

Instead, Macapagal is proposing a middle-ground imperative: the BCDA, he says, “must be fundamentally re-engineered to give the DND and the AFP a seat on the table; they must be given primary involvement in all future executive decisions of the agency.”

“The BCDA is an attached agency operating directly under the Office of the President, meaning its operational output and its relationship with the military directly impact President Marcos’ standing among our enlisted personnel,” Macapagal explained. “Secretary Teodoro’s critique may be structurally sound, but, with all due respect to Secretary Gibo, the answer is not to scrap the agency and lose its global corporate machinery.”

“The answer, according to Macapagal, is to engage the stakeholders; build a mandatory framework for periodic consultation, and ensure that civilian planners never alienate the very soldiers that these economic zones are legally mandated to support.”

Furthermore, strict statutory caps limit the country to rigid, short-term five-year loan repayment windows, making it nearly impossible to absorb the multi-trillion-peso costs of modern, brand new external defense platforms without long-term 20-year financing alternatives.

“Our defense establishment is structurally hemmed in by short-term repayment schemes and underwhelming BCDA cash flows,” Macapagal observed. “But if the BCDA works harder to treat the military as an active board partner rather than a passive bystander, and aligns asset leases with strategic defense needs, then it can optimize state revenues to fortify our military’s deterrent posture.”

PROTECTING GLOBAL COMMITMENTS WHILE ELEVATING ENLISTED MORALE

Macapagal emphasized that maintaining the BCDA’s structural integrity is especially critical now, given its role in spearheading international investments like the United States-led Pax Silica Declaration.

The agency is actively steering the Luzon Economic Corridor, drawing in billions in foreign direct investments from countries like the United States, Japan and others, and overseeing massive green infrastructure assets like the 500-megawatt solar facility inside the New Clark City.

“Abolishing the BCDA entirely would paralyze these multi-billion-dollar contracts and send a destabilizing signal to global venture capital,” Macapagal warned. What the commander-in-chief, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. wants more than anything is -cooperation, not division; an integration of the military’s strategic vision into the BCDA’s corporate profile is the cornerstone of a truly resilient Bagong Pilipinas -where national security and economic prosperity advance hand in hand.”

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